The Doomsday Testament(4)

Against the far wall, at the end of a passage more than a mile below ground, three ancient, milk-eyed Buddhist monks sat cross-legged in saffron robes. Their lips moved in an unceasing incantation that made no allowance for the entry of the strangers.

‘They’re blind,’ Gruber said incredulously. Then after a second’s thought, ‘Why do they need lamps?’

‘For the air.’ Brohm found himself whispering. ‘The flames burn off oxygen and draw air from the surface. Without the lamps the air down here would soon become unbreathable.’ He saw now that the side of the chamber was stacked high with stocks of food, water and dampened sacks of yak butter, which meant these ghostly cave dwellers were resupplied from the outside world at least every few months. But his eyes, like all the others, were drawn to the centre where an ornate golden casket sat upon what could only be a ceremonial altar.

‘Why don’t they acknowledge us?’ Junger hissed. Like a man in a dream, Brohm moved towards the altar. Second by second a realization had been growing in the geologist that made him want to shout out loud. Sweat ran down his back and his hands were clammy as he reached for the casket.

‘For them you do not exist,’ Jigme answered Junger’s question, his voice shaking like an old man’s, ‘except as demons. They are chanting a spell to make you vanish.’

‘What is it?’ Brohm found Gruber at his shoulder, his eyes fever bright. Atlantis was forgotten. All that mattered was the casket.

Obviously of great antiquity, it was about two feet long by eighteen inches wide and eighteen deep. At first Brohm thought it was made of solid gold, but the moment he laid hands on it he realized it was actually wood covered in gold leaf. Representations of the Buddha and various Indian deities had been carved along its length. What puzzled and then excited him was the fact that when he picked it up it weighed as much as gold. He didn’t dare answer Gruber’s question truthfully. For one thing he still wasn’t certain yet, for another Gruber was too stupid to understand.

‘We can’t afford to open it to find out, but I believe what this box contains could be of vital importance to the Reich. It must be returned to the homeland immediately. And in absolute secrecy.’

Gruber stared at him, then nodded. ‘What about the monks?’

Brohm had already decided. ‘Kill them.’ Junger drew his pistol.

Together, they turned to Jigme. ‘And him?’

The tears running down the Tibetan’s cheeks turned the habitual grin into a tragic mask. He was still wearing his smile when Walter Brohm shot him between the eyes.





II



2008, Welwyn Garden City, England


JAMIE SAINTCLAIR KNEW instantly that something was wrong because of the smell, or rather the lack of it. When he arrived at the house on a Sunday afternoon he could expect to be met by the comforting, salty-sweet aroma of roasted beef. Today all he could smell when he opened the back door was sour milk from the open carton beside the stainless-steel sink.

‘Granddad?’

He walked through to the front room his mother had grandly called the lounge, with its fussy ornaments, drab, functional wallpaper, and decades-old furniture. It was cool in here, but that was normal; the old man never turned on the heating before October. What concerned Jamie more was the stillness. The house was always quiet since his mother had died. But never this still.

‘Granddad?’

He opened the door that led to the stairs.

‘Oh, Christ.’

Something sucked the contents of his stomach into his chest and he struggled for breath. He felt as if his feet had been kicked from under him and the roof had fallen in at the same instant. His eyes automatically looked away, as if his mind was convinced that what he’d seen wouldn’t be there when he looked back again.

But it was there, in a tangled heap lying inside the front door at the bottom of the stairs. The long arms and legs that had always reminded him of a demented stick insect splayed at impossible angles and the neck, in its plastic, clerical collar, twisted so that the old man’s dull blue eyes seemed to focus on his left armpit.

‘Granddad?’ Instinct made Jamie reach for the throat to check for a pulse, but he stopped halfway when he realized how pointless the gesture was. If the broken neck wasn’t evidence enough of death, the yellowy-grey pallor of his flesh and the way it seemed to hang off the bones confirmed that Matthew Sinclair had been lying here for days. It looked as if he’d lost his footing on the stairs. Just lately he’d been having trouble moving around, even with the walking stick that Jamie’s subconscious mind noted should have been lying somewhere, but wasn’t.